Stepping in the right direction but still some ways to go

Over the last few years we have witnessed substantial advances in systemic treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients harboring anaplastic lymphoma kinase gene rearrangements (ALK+ NSCLC) (ref). Multiple ALK inhibitors (ALKi) have been approved (alectinib, lorlatinib, brigatinib, ceritinib, crizotinib). Despite the survival benefit of all of these drugs, all patients with ALK+ NSCLC will inevitably progress at some point during their treatment (my review). Given the increased number of therapeutic options, understanding the resistance mechanism appears to be increasingly important.